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What Chuck Schumer Is Revealing out in the Open

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Senator Chuck Schumer on MSNBC: “We’re no longer fact-based. The founding fathers created a country based on fact. We don’t have a fact base. If Breitbart News and the New York Times are regarded with equal credibility, you worry about this democracy.”

First of all, in Schumer’s opening sentence, who is this “we”? There is an implication that the “we” is somehow monolithic and centralized. But people have been in disagreement about facts and what they mean since the dawn of time. People have rejected centralized sources of facts, from kings and queens and priests, to newspapers and television news.

In the same way that 99% of economists assume society must be planned and centralized, Schumer and “the people in power” assume media must operate as a centralized force—as if it’s a natural law.

They just assume it, because until recently, it was the case, it was cozy and easy. But not now. And they’re angry and shocked. They see their foundation of propaganda and mind control slipping away.

You must appreciate how secure they used to feel. It was a cake walk, a picnic in the park. The definition of “fact” was: whatever centralized media said it was. What could be simpler? And to them, that was “democracy.”

Feed the people lies, hide deeper truth, slam dunk.

Then along came independent media.

Boom.

t turned out millions of people were interested.
The cat jumped out of the bag.

I know about this. I’ve been letting cats out of bags since 1982.

That’s longer than some of my readers have been alive.

I also know about censorship, because almost from the beginning of my work as a reporter, I had stories turned down by major media outlets and even alternative outlets. I saw the handwriting on the wall.

Chuck Schumer is echoing what many of his colleagues—and far more powerful people—are worrying about. Their vaunted mouthpieces, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc., are failing. They can’t carry the same old freight with impunity.

So Schumer “worries about the future of democracy.” What he’s actually worried about has nothing to do with democracy, and it certainly has nothing to do with a Republic, which was the form of this nation from the beginning.

Schumer is worried about decentralization.

He’s worried that people are defecting from the authoritarian arrogant Castle of Truth.

And, given his position, he should be worried.

We are at a tipping point. Needless to say—but I will say it—independent media need your support. Your choice about where you obtain your news makes a difference.

Until a few years ago, I never considered that I was relentless. I was just doing my work. But as I saw the counter-efforts of major media, social media, government, Globalists, and other players, as they tried to reassert their primacy, I found a deeper level of commitment. A person can find many reasons to stop what he is doing. Every person eventually realizes that. But will he give in? Or will he decide to keep going? My choice is reflected on these pages, where I write every day.

Many of my colleagues have made the same choice. As for myself, I take the long, long view. Whatever befalls this civilization, the individual survives. He cannot be erased. I know that as surely as I know I am sitting here.

People like Chuck Schumer are living on a foundation of sand. Their power depends on obfuscation and deception and exchanging favors. When they feel the ground shifting under their feet, they growl and accuse and declaim and resort to fake ideals. If they see their con isn’t working and isn’t selling, then they panic.

Which is a good sign.

Many, many years ago, I had a good relationship with a media outlet. Then one day, the man in charge told me I was “positioning myself” outside the scope of his audience. I was speaking to “different people,” and therefore I should “go my own way.” I could tell he wasn’t happy about saying this, because he thought of himself as an independent, but there it was. He was bending to the demands of “his people.” So we parted company.

I was now further “out there” than I had been before. I was “independent of an ‘independent’ media outlet.” It took me about five minutes to see the joke. A good and useful joke.

As the years rolled on, I kept finding myself in a more independent position, which meant I was writing what I wanted to write, and in the process I was discovering deeper levels of what I wanted to write.

Understanding this changed my political view. If I didn’t stand for the free and independent individual, what did I stand for? If I didn’t keep coming back to THAT, what could I come back to?

It made sense to me then, and it makes sense to me now.

This is why I keep writing about collective, the group, the mass, and the generality, those fake representations of life.

The individual is always free, whether he knows it or not. And therefore, he can choose.

This is what the Chuck Schumers of this world vaguely apprehend on the horizon. They can’t believe what they’re seeing; it’s too horrible a prospect. They reject it as a fantasy. A random nightmare.

But it isn’t a random nightmare.

It’s the potential for an open future.

Decentralized.

Alive.

Back from obscurity.

Back from the late 18th century, when the ideas embedded in the Constitution reflected the desire to unleash the free and independent individual and afford him protection from the powers-that-be. (For more from the author of “What Chuck Schumer Is Revealing out in the Open” please click HERE)

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Long Before Neil Gorsuch, Judges Had to Be Liberal Enough for Chuck Schumer

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Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer arguably telegraphed his opposition to Neil Gorsuch as the next Supreme Court justice almost 16 years ago when, as a freshman Democrat from New York, he broke what he called a taboo to say the Senate publicly should make ideology a factor in confirming judges.

Today, Schumer is the Senate’s top Democrat and is leading the charge against President Donald Trump’s first high court nomination.

Schumer not only is the Senate minority leader but a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that will begin hearings Monday on Gorsuch and decide whether to send his nomination to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

The New York Democrat applied the ideology test during the two terms of President George W. Bush’s administration. He also made his opposition to Gorsuch clear in a press conference March 15, where he and other Senate Democrats invited plaintiffs to accuse Gorsuch, a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, of making the wrong ruling.

But Schumer, elected to the Senate in 1998, introduced his philosophy on using ideology in a New York Times op-ed in June 2001.

“For one reason or another, examining the ideologies of judicial nominees has become something of a Senate taboo,” the new senator wrote. “In part out of a fear of being labeled partisan, senators have driven legitimate consideration and discussion of ideology underground. The not-so-dirty little secret of the Senate is that we do consider ideology, but privately.”

He contended that ideological considerations aren’t new, noting the defeat of President George Washington’s nominee for Supreme Court, John Rutledge.

“If the president [then George W. Bush] uses ideology in deciding whom to nominate to the bench, the Senate, as part of its responsibility to advise and consent, should do the same in deciding whom to confirm,” Schumer wrote. “Pretending that ideology doesn’t matter—or, even worse, doesn’t exist—is exactly the opposite of what the Senate should do.”

In another Times op-ed just last month, Schumer criticized Gorsuch for not saying during a private meeting what his opinion was of certain cases, and asserted that, with Trump as president, Gorsuch will have to clear a higher hurdle than previous Supreme Court nominees:

Given the administration’s disdain for the judiciary, any nominee to the Supreme Court, particularly by this president, must be able to demonstrate independence from this president. The bar is always high to achieve a seat on the Supreme Court, but in these unusual times—when there is unprecedented stress on our system of checks and balances—the bar is even higher for Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to demonstrate independence.

Schumer, along with 11 other Democrats still in the Senate today, voted to confirm Gorsuch in 2006 to the appeals court position.

Schumer wrote that Gorsuch “refused to answer” his questions about past cases such as Citizens United and Bush v. Gore, and his view on the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, because such answers might bias him in cases going forward.

“Judge Gorsuch must be far more specific in his answers to straightforward questions about his judicial philosophy and opinions on previous cases,” Schumer added. “He owes it to the American people to provide an inkling of what kind of justice he would be.”

Schumer applied his ideology test regarding specific issues to numerous times during the Bush administration.

“Schumer engineered the Democrats’ unprecedented campaign of filibusters against President George W. Bush’s appellate nominees,” Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Schumer deserves credit or blame—depending on your perspective—for escalating the judicial confirmation wars.”

In 2003, Schumer accused Bush’s nominee to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Charles Pickering, of opposing civil rights. The Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2002 voted 10-9 to block the nomination, when the Senate was under Democratic control. Bush renominated Pickering in January 2003 after Republicans recaptured the Senate, but Democrats filibustered the nomination. Even after Bush eventually recess appointed Pickering in January 2004, Democrats continued the filibuster, and Pickering withdrew his name from consideration in December 2004.

“This administration wants the courts to become the sword that destroys those rights,” Schumer said in a statement at the time. “And don’t think this stops with Judge Pickering. He’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Bush nominated Miguel Estrada in 2001 to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Schumer filibustered the nomination seven times. After 28 months, Estrada withdrew.

Schumer called Estrada “a stealth missile—with a nose cone—coming out of the right wing’s deepest silo.”

A Democratic staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee told the left-wing magazine The Nation in 2002: “Estrada is 40, and if he makes it to the circuit, then he will be Bush’s first Supreme Court nominee. He could be on the Supreme Court for 30 years and do a lot of damage.”

Schumer voted against confirming Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, but later said he didn’t think he did enough.

“Charles Schumer is one of the people who weaponized the filibuster against judicial nominees, so it is no surprise he opposes a well-qualified nominee with bipartisan support like Judge Gorsuch,” Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Sen. Schumer has a longer history of this.”

In early 2016, after the Feb. 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Schumer said the Senate had a duty to vote on whoever President Barack Obama nominated to fill the vacancy. He said:

Well, the job, first and foremost, is for the president to nominate and for the Senate to hold hearings and go through the process. … [Sen.] Ted Cruz holds the Constitution, you know, when he walks through the halls of Congress. Let him show me the clause that says [the] president’s only president for three years.

Does this mean we don’t hold hearings on anything? The president shouldn’t nominate Cabinet ministers? It certainly might mean the Republicans shouldn’t repeal Obamacare in the fourth year. And so, our job is to go forward with the process and then we’ll see what happens.

(For more from the author of “Long Before Neil Gorsuch, Judges Had to Be Liberal Enough for Chuck Schumer” please click HERE)

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Chuck Schumer’s Hypocrisy on Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee

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This weekend, President Donald Trump criticized U.S. District Judge James Robart for his halt of the president’s immigration order — a ruling issued without any accompanying legal analysis.

Now, key Senate Democrats are threatening to use the remark against Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to use Trump’s remark to raise the bar “even higher” for Gorsuch’s confirmation. Both Schumer and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., now promise to question Gorsuch’s “ability to be an independent check” on the executive branch.

Seemingly unaware of the obvious hypocrisy, Schumer, Leahy, and other Democrats are accusing Trump of questioning Robart’s legitimacy while doing the same to Gorsuch, a U.S. Court of Appeal judge.

To question Gorsuch’s ability to remain “independent” is to question his ability to do his job as a judge.

These Democrats also seem to have forgotten that they cheered President Barack Obama’s attempt to bully the Supreme Court during his 2010 State of the Union address, when he denounced and falsely characterized the court’s Citizens United decision while the justices sat yards away.

Chief Justice John Roberts said he found Obama’s intimidation “very troubling.” Yet it was Schumer, sitting directly behind the justices in the House chamber, who rose with his Democrat colleagues to vigorously applauded Obama’s remarks.

Senate Republicans did not threaten to raise the bar for Justice Elena Kagan, when Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court just months after his controversial State of the Union address.

Republicans could have argued that Obama’s unprecedented criticism of the justices cast doubt on Kagan’s independence and made her confirmation more problematic. But they didn’t.

Senate Democrats would be well advised to follow this example by focusing on Gorsuch’s record and qualifications, rather than using the process to express their unhappiness with Trump. (For more from the author of “Chuck Schumer’s Hypocrisy on Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee” please click HERE)

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Hypocrite Up-Chuck Schumer Wants to Keep Scalia’s Seat Open Forever

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In a rhetorical about-face that should surprise nobody, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (F, 2%) has pledged to do everything in his power to block President-elect Donald Trump’s Supreme Court moves going forward.

Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday that he “absolutely” plans to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat open indefinitely.

Barring a new nuclear option, if Sen. Schumer can muster enough Senate votes behind his cause (even though Americans elected a Republican government with the future Supreme Court as a chief election issue), the seat will stay open. The Constitution grants Congress the responsibility to control the size and scope of the courts – something they should do with far more discretion and zeal, mind you.

After all, as I wrote yesterday, this is politics. Obviously, the Senate minority leader’s plan is completely out of step with the American people, but what else can you expect from the Democratic Party these days?

The issue at hand here is the sheer hypocrisy.

Oh, how elections can change things. The Democrats no longer have the prospect of turning the federal high court into a stronger version of the liberal battering ram it has become over the past few decades, and now Sen. Schumer sounds exactly like the same politicians he was telling to “Do your job!” just months ago.

Yes, after months of contorting the intent of the Constitution to sell the idea that it was the job of the Senate GOP to usher Merrick Garland into Scalia’s vacant seat, the minority leader has miraculously rediscovered the Senate’s checking power on the judicial branch – just in time for the new administration.

Democrat obstructionism is sure to be a thorn in the side of everyone who voted for the new president-elect, because the voters didn’t want to see Justice Scalia replaced with a leftist water-carrier. Luckily, Democrats have created enough of a template over the past few months to give the Senate majority all the rhetorical ammo they need for the fights ahead.

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s hypocrisy here is ripe for mockery, and the GOP should give it to him – as H.L. Mencken would put it – good and hard. (For more from the author of “Hypocrite Up-Chuck Schumer Wants to Keep Scalia’s Seat Open Forever” please click HERE)

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